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Well, struggling homeowners, that long-anticipated mortgage relief plan President Obama has been alluding to has finally been reached. Today the Department of Justice announced that its 16 month-long investigation into bank-related foreclosure abuses, following the robo-signing debacle of fall 2010, has culminated in a $25 billion mortgage relief plan aimed at helping homeowners.

The largest joint federal-state settlement ever, the deal was struck between the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 49 state attorneys general, and the country's five largest mortgage loan servicers: Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JP Morgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Company and Ally Financial Inc.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement released by the DOJ today:

"It holds mortgage servicers accountable for abusive practices and requires them to commit more than $20 billion towards financial relief for consumers. As a result, struggling homeowners throughout the country will benefit from reduced principals and refinancing of their loans. The agreement also requires substantial changes in how servicers do business, which will help to ensure the abuses of the past are not repeated.”

It sounds very exciting. And indeed, as my colleague Deborah Jacobs outlines in her article, "What The Mortgage Relief Plan Would Do For Homeowners," the settlement promises to aid underwater homeowners who are behind on payments in getting their principal balances negotiated down; to enable homeowners who are not behind to get refinanced on their mortgages; and to award former homeowners who were improperly foreclosed upon between 2008 and 2011 one-time restitution payments of about $1,500 to $2,000. (More on this here: "Why Homeowners Can't Bank On The Mortgage Relief Plan.")

About 1.8 million homeowners are reportedly expected to benefit from this settlement, most notably in foreclosure-riddled states like California and Florida. California, one of the last states to sign onto the settlement, will reap a huge chunk of the settlement money: up to $18 billion. As my colleague Steve Schaefer reports, the banks must offer at least $12 billion in principal reductions or short sale offers just to California homeowners that are either behind on their underwater mortgages or, as the State of California Department of Justice notes, "almost behind in their payments."

Foreclosure has become a common term in the past several years as millions of American homeowners have faced the process since the housing bubble burst. More than three million homes have been fully foreclosed upon since 2007. In 2011 alone, nearly 1.9 million homes had one or more foreclosure filings attached to them, according to RealtyTrac. CoreLogic estimates that nearly 11 million homeowners are "underwater" on their mortgages, or paying off loans that are worth more than the value of their homes.

Looking at these numbers, a $25 billion settlement that reaches only two million homeowners, despite the fact that this deal is the largest of its kind ever, seems likely to fall short of reaching all of the homeowners in need. So how will the foreclosure settlement actually affect the housing market as a whole?